GEOG 1001 Environmental Systems: Climate and Vegetation

INSTRUCTOR CONTACT:

Dr. Steven Welter

Email: steven.welter@colorado.edu

ABOUT THE COURSE:

This term-based course introduces the atmospheric environment of the Earth: elements and controls of climate and their implications for hydrology, vegetation, and soils. It emphasizes distribution of physical features across the Earth’s surface and interactions between humans and their environment, especially those leading to global change on the decade to century time scale.

This 4-credit course includes a mandatory laboratory component that is also delivered online. This course meets MAPS requirement for natural science (non-lab or lab), and is approved for arts and sciences CORE curriculum (natural science). There are no pre-requisites.

OBJECTIVES:

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• describe the primary physical elements and processes that drive the Earth-atmosphere system
• explain how these integrated dynamic processes affect the timing and pattern of Earth’s weather and climate systems
• describe the essential principles of ecosystems and explain the characteristics and spatial distribution of Earth’s primary terrestrial ecosystems
• interpret maps, graphs, and tabular data depicting atmospheric and ecologic phenomena
• evaluate a variety of ways in which humans interact with and alter the atmospheric and biotic components of the Earth system

REQUIRED TEXT:

Christopherson, R.W., Geosystems: An Introduction to Physical Geography, 10/E. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

GRADING:

Your final course grade will be based on the following:

** No extra credit is available for this course.